Add Category
Updated
Teams preparing to take part in the World Solar Challenge event from Darwin to Adelaide have revealed the futuristic cars they plan to drive 3,000 kilometres — powered purely by the sun — in the October event.
They range from sleek single-seater sports models to a low-slung five-seater family car.
The Dutch team that won the passenger car "cruiser" class in the 2015 Solar Challenge — with a four-seat family vehicle called Stella Lux — has increased its seating capacity to five with new entry Stella Vie.
Team Eindhoven spokeswoman Beatrix Bos said Stella Vie also had a more efficient design.
"We have a curved roof this time. Normally, we always had a flat big roof, but now it's more sexy, more curved and even better for aerodynamics," Ms Bos said.
Solar Challenge aims to inspire new type of family car
The cruiser-class category of the World Solar Challenge encourages competitors to build cars that could lead to the development of a mass-production solar-powered family car.
Australia's Team Arrow, based in Queensland, has switched over to the cruiser class as part of a plan to create a passenger car that can be produced commercially.
Adelaide's Flinders University is working on its own version of a solar-powered passenger vehicle, but neither team has unveiled their cars yet, so it is not clear whether they will equal the five-seat standard set by world leaders Eindhoven.
'It's going to absolutely fly'
Adelaide University has revealed its entry, the Lumen II, declaring the car to be lighter, faster and more aerodynamic than the vehicle it entered in the biennial event in 2015.
The Lumen II is competing in the single-seat "challenger" class that has had a rule change this year — cutting the solar cell area from six square metres to four.
Adelaide University Team Manager Spencer Olds said the change created a challenge for the engineering students who built the new car, but he was confident it would perform better than the vehicle his university entered in 2015, which finished in 21st position out of 29 teams.
"We've halved the weight, we've lopped 30 per cent off the aerodynamic drag and we've increased the solar panel efficiency by 50 per cent. With those changes we reckon it's going to absolutely fly," he said.
This year, the team is aiming for an average speed of about 80 kilometres per hour, compared with the 60kph average recorded in 2015.
The university's Executive Dean of the faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Anton Middleberg said that the advanced technology work done by students who built the Lumen II would become the jobs of the future in South Australia, where car manufacturing is about to end.
Adelaide's team manager Spencer Olds said 45 students had already spent more than 25,000 hours building the Lumen II and there is still a bit of work to do be done before the car can be put to the test during high-speed scrutineering.
That will take place at Darwin's Hidden Valley race track, to make sure it is up to travelling all the way down the Stuart Highway to Adelaide.
The World Solar Challenge starts in Darwin on October 8, and if there is good sunshine the first cars are expected to cross the finish line in Adelaide three days later.
Topics: solar-energy, road-transport, adelaide-5000, sa, australia
First posted